Liquid crystal display (LCD) is commonly used as a display device because of its capability of displaying images with good quality while using little power. LCD devices can be broadly classified into transmissive LCD devices and reflective LCD devices. In general, a transmissive LCD device has a backlight light source, and displays an image by controlling an amount of transmitted light from the backlight light source. A reflective LCD device has a reflector for reflecting light from outside, and displays an image by utilizing the light reflected by the reflector as a display light source. The reflective LCD device requires no backlight light source, so that it has an advantage over the transmissive LCD device in terms of reducing the power consumption, the thickness, and the weight of the device. However, the reflective LCD device has such a shortcoming that the contrast and visibility become deteriorated under a dark condition, since it uses light in the surroundings as the display light source.
In order to overcome the foregoing drawbacks, transflective LCD devices that have advantages of both the transmissive LCD device and the reflective LCD device have been put into practical use. A transflective LCD device has a transmissive area and a reflective area within a unit pixel. The transmissive area transmits light from a backlight light source, and uses the backlight light source as a display light source. The reflective area has a reflector, and uses external light that is reflected by the reflector as a display light source. With the transflective LCD device, it is possible to reduce the power consumption by putting out the backlight light source and displaying an image with the reflective areas under a bright condition. Further, it is also possible to display an image even under a dark condition by putting on the backlight light source and displaying an image with the transmissive areas when the surrounding condition turns dark.
Conventionally, a transflective LCD device is designed to have a multi-cell gap so as to ensure the lengths of light transmitting through the transmissive area and of light reflected back by the reflective area to be same. Manufacturing such a transflective LCD usually requires more masks and more processing steps. Additionally, a traditional transflective IPS LCD is also designed to include one or more pattern retarders. This will increase the manufacture cost on one hand. On the other hand, it enlarges the size of the LCD.
Therefore, a heretofore unaddressed need exists in the art to address the aforementioned deficiencies and inadequacies.